Narayana Murthy, founder of the Indian information technology services giant Infosys, does not believe ChatGPT will render humans obsolete anytime soon. Murthy, who served as Infosys’ CEO from 1981-2002, spoke to CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in the latest episode of The CNBC Conversation, wherein Murthy expressed his confidence in the power of the human mind.
In November, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by AI that can perform a variety of tasks from coding to writing essays to engaging in conversation. Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Baidu soon spun clones of the chatbot. However, Murthy said that ChatGPT can only be used as an “instrument” or “assistant” to enable higher quality work and output, rather than as a replacement of human beings.
Murthy said that ChatGPT is a great addition to knowledge generation and can only be used to its fullest potential if it is used in conjunction with the power of the human mind. As Murthy put it, “If there is a competition between you and me, you will use the ChatGPT output as your base, and then you will add your own differentiation, your own smartness, your own tweaking…The lazy guys will get C. Only smart people will get A.”
Infosys, co-founded by Murthy in 1981 with an initial capital of only $250, is today a multibillion dollar brand with a market capitalization of $62 billion and employs more than 346,000 across the globe from Asia-Pacific to North America to Europe and the Middle East. It was the first Indian company to be listed on the Nasdaq in March 1999 and subsequently listed on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2012 and is currently the third most valuable IT services brand with a brand value of $13 billion, trailing behind Accenture and Tata Consultancy Services.
Murthy is ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders who have made maximum impact on society and his views stand testament to the power of the human mind: nothing can beat the human mind — not even AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT.
